Class I! 4*3** 
Book "II 3 G 



A PLEA FOR THE COUNTRY AGAINST THE SECTIONS. 



SPEECH 



J! S A 



I 

IOW. HENRY WIJfTER DAVIS, 



Of 



MARYLAND, 



DELIVERED IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE MITEIX STATES, 



ON THE TTH OF AUGUST, 1856. 



WASHINGTON 

AUGUST, 1 8 5 6. 

Vkericas Organ, Trint. 

1 eojpy 2* 



A PLEA FOR THE COUNTRY AGAINST THE SECTIONS, 



Mr. DAVIS, of Maryland, rose and said : 
"Is Philip dead? No, by Jove — but he's sick!" 
Such was the chatter of the factious democrats of 
Athens, chilled by the shadow of the coming 
Cheronea. 

" Will Fillmore decline? No, but he's too weak 
to get a single State" — say Democrat and Republi- 
can, shivering before the blast of the coming 
November. 

Mr. Chairman, they consult prophets who pro- 
phecy pleasant things. Their hopes are the oracle 
speaking by the inspiration of their interests. And 
yet while they trust to the prophecy to produce its 
s ^complishment, they confidentially sigh, "Would 
it were bedtime, Hal — and all well!" That bed 
time will surely come. But whether the couch of 
victory or the bed of death will be spread — ah ! 
that's the question. 

Sir, a party at brag and bluff is a suspicious wit- 
ness to the goodness of his own hand ; and the by- 
standers I believe do not usually regard him as a 
better witness to the badness of his adversary's. 

If Democrat and Republican have conspired to- 
gether mutually to play by-bidder at each other's 
mock auction — to put off on the country plated 
brass for gold — the people will have the sagacity 
to see that though Liberty be on one side, the 
image and superscription of the Union is not oh 
the other, and the lacking weight will reveal the 
counterfeit. 

I desire to make thi3 discrimination. I wish to 
inquire into the weight of this style of brag, which 
has, to my poor understanding, exhausted the re- 
sources of my opponents. 

Say the Democrats, " Do not vote for Mr. Fill- 
more, because he cannot get a single State at the 
North." Say the Republicans, " Do not vote for 
Mr. Fillmore, because he cannot get a single State 
at the South." And both are so simple as to sup- 
pose by thus excluding him from the regions of 
their opponents, that they have finally dealt with 
his pretensions! 



Why is it that two parties as wide apart as tht; 
southern and northern poles have conspired to- 
gether in this significant and novel way for the pur- 
pose of denying to their most dangerous opponent 
strength in the regions where the adversary of each 
is strong ? There are two organized parties in this 
country which claim to represent adverse local in- 
terests. The Democratic party rests itself on its 
boasted and self-arrogated privilege of supporting 
and sustaining the peculiar institution of the South. 
Its strength, and its whole strength, consists in its 
assertion that it alone is the defender of Southern 
rights. Ic is therefore dangerous to them for any- 
thing to arise within the limits of the South and 
claim a hearing of the Southern people, which 
touches more nearly the rights of the people and 
appeals to the more elevated and noble sentiments 
of devotion to the Union and the Constitution. The 
gentlemen of the Republican party of the North 
aspire to represent that sentiment which is like- 
wise local and peculiarly confined to the boundary 
of the North, and having no power beyond it. 
They likewise are jealous of the intrusion on their 
domain of any topic of such stirring interest as will 
call the minds of the North away from she contem- 
plation of the perpetual cry s " Freedom is na- 
tional, and slavery is sectional ;" " the rights of 
man;" "the oppressions of the South,'" "the 
equality of the negro race." 

All these minister to tho excitement in the 
North. They are subjects in themselves neither 
interesting nor attractive— not so interesting or 
attractive but that an appeal to the great interests 
of the country, the great fundamental principles 
of our Constitution, to the great danger of the 
agitation of these topics, may possibly reach the 
ear of the most besotted, and startle the reason of 
those who are still rational, that they whose talk ia 
of negroes, and who think that the servants at the 
altar should live of the altar, may find themselves 
preaching to empty benches. One, therefore, and 
the o&ar, esc& within &is own region, seeks to 



4 



drive out and destroy everything that may sow 
wheat among his tares. They may touch any- 
thing else but these rights of sovereignty, but put 
forth your hand and touch them in the very body 
of their power and they arise and curse you to 
jour face. 

The Democrat is jealous of anything which im- 
peaches the high duty of extending the institu- 
tion, and is impatient of men who accept it as an 
existing institution, to be protected as any other 
great national industrial interest is to be protected. 

The Republican tolerates no man who questions 
the practical honesty of the higher law, and sug- 
gests the conscientious duty of conformity to the 
practical enforcement of the Constitution. 

Both cry out, no compromise ; both execrate all 
adherence to the existing condition of affairs as 
wisest and best. Each boasts conquests inthe fu- 
ture over his antagonist. Each lives and moves and 
and has its being in an atmosphere confined to its 
own region ; it cannot breathe a moment the air 
on which the other thrives. Neither has any rep- 
Tesentative in the region of its adversary to soften 
their antagonism. They are both strictly sectional 
parties, tending to bring into collision hostile 
opinions, feelings, and interests, concentrated with- 
out mixture at the opposite polls of the country — 
each intensified like opposite electricities by the 
intensity of the other, and threatening, if brought 
toto contact, an explosion which may shake the 
foundations of the Republic. Each knows that un- 
less it can keep exclusive control of the whole 
region there is no hope of triumph, nor even of a 
collision. 

In this lies at once their strength and their 
weakness. 

Unless Mr. Buchanan can carry the whole South, 
and trust — not to 'party discipline, for that has died 
away — but to the chance of the bribe of high 
office to persons in the North to make up the de- 
ficiency of the Southern vote, my Democratic 
friends know full well that they have not the most 
remote prospect of succeeding in carrying him to 
the Presidential chair. And our Republican 
friends on the other side, with equal reason, based 
on equally notorious facts, know, if the State of 
New York is stricken from them, that they are a 
powerless minority, out of doors, and that no nom- 
inee of theirs can darken the doors of the White 
House. It is therefore not because of their strength 
but because o their vxakness that the one and the 
other seek to produce the impression which it is 
possible ,*n in ch&Tifiy ough ito fee conceded, each 
believes but which it is difficult fo? men who hold 
a moderate and middle position like myself not to 
regard in a very different light. It is for this rea- 
son that each party, deluded into the idea that it 



is enthroned in the exclusive control of its own 
sectional interest and its own sectional power, at 
tempts the vain task of persuading the country 
that a man like Mr. Fillmore, resplendent with the 
glories of a great administration which appeals to 
those pervading and national considerations whicl 
wake responses in the hearts of the people, must 
be left in an insignificant minority of a few rational 
men of the North and South. 

Mr. Chairman, long lists of names have been para 
ded of new eonvertsto Mr. Buchanan. Letters have 
been spread before the public, urging arguments 
with all the authority of names entitled to the pro- 
found respect of the House and the country, 
know in these lists, whether they relate to Mary 
land or elsewhere, of no man who at the fall elec 
tion earnestly supported the American cause, 
see among the names on that list none who were 
regarded as the friends of the American cause, 
see in most of them neophytes of Democracy, then 
hardened sinners against its benign rule, who were 
baptized last fall, whose tender faith has been 
duly instructed by the sponsors at their baptism 
and whose public and formal declaration now 
is nothing but the ceremony of confirmation to the 
world of their earlier conversion. There is nothing 
in that list which need shake the confidence of any 
friend of the American party. There is nothing 
which makes the scale of Mr. Fillmore vacillst^ for a 
single instant in i§i inclination in the State of ?|fary- 
land. There is nothing that in the slightest- de- 
gree increases the difficulty of repeating, with 
larger majorities and greater eclat, the triumph of 
the past year. 

But, sir, I rise now to test the argument thus 
supported by great names and widespread au- 
thority. 

We are not to vote for Fillmore, because a ma- 
jority at the North are opposed to his patriotic 
and wise administration — so runs the reason : be- 
cause the majority of the North are not favorable 
to compromise and conciliation — so runs the rea- 
son : because the majority of the North regard the 
time as come when they must get a scourge for the 
South — because the majoritg of the North are of 
that opinion, therefore, in this contest which they 
supercilously assume is to be between the Northern 
candidate and the Southern candidate, all men 
must desert the candidate who is alone the candi- 
date of the Constitution and the Union. 

The argument is hollow and insidious. If the 
majority of the North be such, then the time for 
voting is past ; it is no longer a question whether 
we will vote for Fillmore or Buchanan as President 
of the United States, because the South is in a piti- 
able minority in the Electoral College, and every 
vote cast there leaves her where she is, and with- 



5 



out the power of self-protection. If the hour of 
madness be come ; if reason be dead in her chosen 
seat; if the conservative North has ceased to be 
conservative, and is inspired by the hatred this ar- 
gument ascribes to her people ; then we have no 
election on the fourth of November for President 
of the United States. Mr. Buchanan wilt be ine- 
ligible as a foreigner to rule the South ! We have 
passed by the time of the election of that man 
whose name is to close the fasti of that illustrious 
line. The people in 1852 divined well that they 
were choosing the Honorious of the Republic, and 
fitted the man to the station ! 

The argument proves too much, if it is true. If 
it is not true, it is trash. 

But the argument is put in a different shape, and 
it is pointed directly at Mr. Fillmore. His merit3 
are made his incapacities. His truth to the Union 
is made the reason why Southern gentlemen, for 
whom he ran the greatest risk against the opinion 
of his own region of country, are to turn against 
him, desert him, for a man who has encountered 
nothing for them, or for the Union. The majority 
of the North are opposed to Mr. Fillmore, because 
of his wise and patriotic administration ; they 
will then vote for Buchanan, because his adminis- 
tration will not be so wise and patriotic ! They are 
opposed to Fillmore, because they are opposed to 
conciliation and compromise ; they will vote for Mr. 
Buchanan, because he and his party have said no 
more compromise, and no more conciliation. They 
will not vote for Fillmore, because they want a 
scourge for the South ! Unwittingly the argument 
pictures the result of that poliey — which our Dem- 
ocratic friends have inaugurated and followed out 
to its bitter end. The majority of the Northern 
allies of the Democrats, are supposed very likely 
to vote for Buchanan, because he will be a scourge 
to the South. If that be not the argument, then 
the argument is unmeaning ! 

Well, if that be the foundation of the argument, 
will not gentlemen who appreciate the force of 
reasoning, cease to use it? Will they not give some 
better reason why Mr. Fillmore can get no strength 
at the North? Will they not say, "come let us 
reason together," and say that Mr. Buchanan bet- 
ter respects the great fundamental principle of the 
constitution, and not base their argument on the 
revolutionary assumption that the majority of the 
men 01 the free States are run mad against the 
men of the South? It is very tempting I know to 
Southern Democrats. If the majority of the North 
are madly bent on punishing the South, they will 
pass Mr. Fillmore by, and inflict on it Mr. Buchan- 
an as the more cruel scourge. The argument is 
good, sir — the fact on which it rest3 is not true. 

Far different is my estimate of my Northern 



brethren. I am not aware of any act of the North, 
as they appear upon our statute books, or as exe- 
cuted from the Executive chamber, however wild 
may have been the votes occasionally of a majority 
upon this floor, or however dangerous the argu- 
ments pressed into their support, which in the slight- 
est degree has sullied the honor, or injured the in- 
terest of the South. They have differed upon in- 
dustrial questions and decided them by party tac- 
tics ; they have been set, one party against the 
other, in party manoeuvre, party triumph, and 
domination ; but, I say that, during the eighty 
years of the Republic, there is no portion of this 
great land which has reason to cast into the teeth 
of either the North or the South that any great 
right of either section has been trampled down ; 
any great right of the Constitution deliberately 
violated ; any fact showing that madness rules the 
majority either at the North, or at the South 

But there is a solemn fact which my Demo- 
cratic friends admit. There is hostility at the 
North. They adroitly point it at the South. They 
vainly strive to place the South between themselves 
and the shaft that has alreadg smitten them to 
the earth. There is a wrath boiling up at the North, 
but it is a wrath which boils against them. There 
is a hostility at the North — but it is a hostility 
which they have aroused, which has stricken 
them down and will keep them down. 

I wish to feel the pulse of the North to-night. 
I wish to see whether it be reason or madness 
throbbing there — whether it be the rational wrath 
of men who, believing they have been outraged in 
their dearest rights, or whether it be the madness 
of men who have flashed into fury causelessly. 

Sir, there are a series of great facts which strike 
us wheresoever we turn our eyes. In 1853, the pre- 
sent incumbent of the Presidential chair was eleva- 
ted on the shields of twenty-seven States, and borne 
to the White House amid the acclamations cf an ex- 
ultant people, rejoicing in the advent of an era of 
peace. Three suns have run their course and now 

" He is at supper — not where he eats, but where 
he is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms 
are e'en at him." 

" Since he miscalled the morning star, 
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far.' 7 

When he ascended the chair of State, a great 
majority of seventy in this House obsequeously 
awaited his will. The sun had not thrice run his 
course ere that majority han shriveled to seventy- 
four men. Their place knows them no more. — 
This side of the chamber is a charnel house of 
dead Democrats. The few survivors tread mourn- 
fully as they cross it — as a Roman might walk over 
Cannae. "The bloody ghost of- the murdered 
Wright " still to the eye of the gentleman from 



\ 



6 



Georgia [Mr. Cobb] disputes the stool with his 
successor of fiesh and blood, [Mr. Fuller,] and 
many other spectres have left untimely graves to 
warn the pale survivors by their fate. 

My honorable friend ft cm South Carolina was 
early at the sepulchres of the righteous in New 
Hampshire vainly seeking signs of the day of resur- 
rection of the body. But the snow still lay on the 
marble— the crocus of the early spring had not 
pushed through the frozen soil — and he returned 
sadiy, chanting : 

" A cold, deceitful thing is the snow, 
Though it come on dove-like wing — the false 
snow— 

*Tis but rain disguised appears ; 

And our hopes are frozen tears — like the snow." 

Indeed, sir, the resurrection of the Democratic 
party at the North is an event not at all anticipated 
there. It has sunk from view — like water spilled 
upon the ground, not to be gathered again. 

A stubborn resoiutien has been manifested at 
the North. Since that great day there has been 
nothing which shows that my honorable friends 
oil the Democratic side of the House have a ma- 
jority in one single State north of Mason and 
Dixon's line. There is not one single fact that 
shows that they c-an carry a State north of Ma- 
son and Dixon's line on national politics even 
by a plurality. The account of loss and gain 
stand » & sst-of « If hi Pennsylvania Demo- 
crats and Whigs and Americans have combined 
to elect a canal commissioner by a plurality only, in 
Maine Democrats and liquor men have united and 
carried a local election by a plurality. In New 
Hampshire and Connecticut the Americans have 
carried the local elections by pluralities. If New 
Jersey has given a Democratic majority in a local 
election, California has come to the Americans by 
a great majority. 

The faithful fondly hoped that some of those 
elections indicated a change of tide. They forgot 
that Faistaff " parted just between twelve and 
one, e'en at turning o' the tide." If there be any 
compunctions of conscience forcing them to cry 
out, God ! God ! God I let them beware of those 
Dame Quickleys who, to comfort them, bid them 
not think of God, and hope there is no need to 
trouble themselves with such thoughts yet; for 
whfcn the parting FalstafT so cried and was so com- 
forted, and had more clothes laid on his feet, 
the comforter, Dame Quickly, knew there was but 
one way, and when, she put her hand into the bed 
and felt his feet — they were as cold as any stone — 
and then she "felt to his knees, and so upward and 
upward, and all was as cold as any stone." 

Sir, the fatal hour ha3 come. Even while I 
speak, the stricken field of Iowa brings to them 



defeat and disaster, crushed hopes and cruel dis- 
appointment. Their feet are already cold in the 
North, and as we feel upward and'upward and up- 
ward towards their head in the South, all is cold 
as any stone. 'Tis vain to ask for more clothes on 
the feet, for their passing bell is already tolling 
that men may pray for the parting soul. But, sir, 
they are not without consolation. There are true 
Bardolphs, who, when told of their death, will ex- 
claim : i 

" Would I were with them wheresome'er they 
be — either in heaven or in hell!" 

Now, sir, why is all this ? We need no election 
statistics for the response. They were the trium- 
phant and dominant party at the North ere this 
great flood. Now they do not number more than 
fourteen members from the populous North in this 
hall. They were the party said to be specially devo- 
ted to the interests of the South at the North before 
this great flood. None so sound, none so unshaken, 
none so true to defend the South, through thick 
and thin, at all hazards, and to the last extremity, 
as the Democrats of the North. Where are they 
gone? "Are they asleep, or on a journey, or at 
the feast," or have they forgotten their duty, or 
have they become mad, or have they played like 
children — casting one vote for my honorable friends 
and another for their honorable opponents? 

Sir, the American people have been bred in 
American habits. They are not in the habit of 
capricious and causeless change. And yet there is a 
change. I mean to speak the cause of that change 
out loud. It is, the repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise, the enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska 
act, and the outrages in the Territory of Kansas, 
denied or defended by my honorable Democratic 
friends. They were warned by the honorable Sen- 
ator from Illinois, who reported that measure, in 
his first report against it, of the dangerous conse- 
quences, and they would not heed the warning. — 
In an evil day for his reputation he allowed him- 
self to be overcome by party and personal ambi- 
tion, and to be deluded by the hopes of party dom- 
ination. He allowed himself to be deluded by the 
supposition that he could bring to the support of 
that measure the great body of Southern men, 
Whigs and Democrats, and that the temporary 
excitement would only raise the froth upon the 
surface, while the depths of the ocean would roll 
on in their sluggish sleep. Sir, he cast the javelin 
against the cave of iEolus, and all the winds of 
strife have rushed forth across the ocean and cast 
up a tempest which leaves of the vast fabric of the 
Democratic party nothing but scattered and bro- 
ken fragments, cast on the shores for the wreck- 
ers to collect, a*nd, as they measure the dimen- 
isons of mast and spar, to wonder what great ad- 



7 



sural it was that has gone down in that terrific I 
sea. 

Sir, is not that the reason ? I do not ask gen- 
tlemen to tell me whether it is an adequate reason. 
I do not ask gentlemen to say if the North is reasona- 
ble In her anger. I simply ask gentlemen upon their 
candor and honorif that isnot thereason of the exist- 
ing condition of things ? There is no gentlemen hero 
whose breast does not echo that it is. And I ven- 
ture lit tie when I say there is scarcely one of my 
Democratic friends who can appreciate the posi- 
tion in which it has placed them, who does not, 
from the bottom of his heart, curse the day on 
which he was so misled. If they adhere still 
to the Kansas-Nebraska act, it is from neces- 
sity, and net from choice, that my honorable 
friends, finding themselves at the bottom of the 
Water, have, like Cooper's sailor in the western 
lake, seized a root to keep themselves there. 
It is from necessity, and not from choice, that 
with 
down to 



a mill-stone round their nee 



her march 



iter for a swimming matel 



fght men having floats on. 

Why, sir, what are their apologies — their apol- 
ogies to the North, their apologies to their Bem- 
ocvoiic friends whom they have slain, murdered, 
and sent to., the land of ghosts, for Wiose ab- 
sence my friend from Georgia weeps ? The Mis- 
souri Compromise — say they — was unconstitution- 
al. But since when? say the North to thes;. That 
d»es not rest well, gentlemen, in your mouths, for 
it was a Democratic majority that passed it. It wa3 
the great men of the Democratic party, and more 
than ail others, the great Marylander, Win. Pinck- 
nev, who proposed and advocated and carried that 
great measure of healing in that day. The great 
argument which he addressed to vindicate the sov- 
ereignty of a State from the binding control of 
conditions imposed by Congress, is the argument 
misunderstood, broken into small fragments suit- 
able to the strength and stature of tljoso who use 
iheai, and misapplied now by gentlemen to disprove 
t n,: power of Congress to pass the very Missouri re- 
striction on a Territory, which he all along advoca- 
ted at the very time of that great argument, and in- 
corporated into the very act which is his triumphal 
monument to the peace which he conquered and 
perpetuated by it. And Mr. Monroe, their Presi- 
dent, signed it — signed it not hastily — but after 
consulting his cabinet, in which was Mr. Calhoun, 
o.i the precise question of constitutionality. 

[3 that long ago ? Has wisdom arisen in a later 
generation ? Have new lights been discovered in 
, the constitution? Have judicial decisions clcare 



v the difficulty ? It was in 184; 
wcratic measure was passed bv 
ixed to this Union, and mv 1 



at great 
v T!iswas 
friends, 



or their predecessors, then in a majority in both 
branches of Congress, passed the Texas resolution 
which enacted that very thing against which Pinck- 
ney directed the argument which they now make 
the arsenal for weapons to assail what he advoca- 
ted. They cast their votes for it, and President 
Tyler, on the third of March, signed it. Oh, but 
Tyler was not a Democrat ! Yes, but he vas, by 
conversion or perversion, or treachery and deser- 
tion ; he was by acceptance and adoption ; he wa3 
by his cabinet and hig administration; be was dou- 
bly so by the presence and counsel of Calhoun, the 
incarnation of the very idea of Southern strict 
construction ; and it is under stood that the resolu- 
tions came down from the Secretary of State,_who 
was Mr, Calhoun ; that it was his influence which 
despatched the resolutions to Texas for acceptance 
on the last day of President Tyler's term ; and Ms. 
Polk, though ou the spot, did not recall them. 

That resolution declares that all the territory 
south of 36 deg. 80 min., whenever Texas should 
be divided, shall come into the Union with or 
without slavery, as the States may determine; and 
that, in such State or States — (I ask gentlemen to 
bear the word State in mind) — in those States which 
shall be formed out of so much of the Texan ter- 
ritory as lies north of 38 deg. 30 min. — in those 
States — (I wish the word to burn itself into their 
seared consciences. It is the thing which was in 
issue in the Missouri struggle. It was the only thing 
which was there deputed. It is the thing which was 
decided in the Missouri controversy in favor of the 
South to be an unconstitutional limitation on the 
sovereign equality of the States) — in those States 
which shall be formed cut of the territory north of 
that line, slavery and involuntary servitude shall 
be prohibited. And James Buchanan was one of 
the Democratic majority who advocated and 
passed it ! 

Time rolled on, and another Territory was to be 
organized. Again", with that remarkable luck 
which has followed them — which has misled them'Sj 
to their deep undoing — they had the majority in 
this Hall, they had a majority in both branches of 
the councils of the nation, when the Territory of 
Oregon was to he organized; and again that ma- 
jority adopted that restriction — word for word — 
the Ordinance of 178*7. Again a Democratic Pres- 
ident, Mr. Polk, signed it, and n®t merely so signed, 
but with a further declaration, not that he expect- 
ed this to be the last of it — not merely that slavery 
was there impossible or improbable — but upon the 
expectation that it would be again passed by that 
or another Congress, ado-pted and incorporated 
into the art* for the settlement of the Mexican, 
conquests ! 

I neither affirm the correctness nor the ineor- 



8 



rectness of this view : I simply urge the fact which 
Northern Democrats pleaded against Southern 
Democrats. 

But, said my honorable friends upon the Demo- 
cratic side of this hall, to their Democratic friends 
from the North — for there is where the defection 
arose, there is where the strength of the Republi- 
can party comes from — out of their own side came 
that portentous creation whence comes this sin 
and all our woe into our happy world — we say 
that we have reversed all that, and those laws and 
compromises are void, by reason ©f being incon- 
sistent with- the Compromise measures of 1850. 
Those measures have repealed it. Ah ! but, said 
their Northern Democratic friends, continuing 
their remonstrance, the law which organized the 
Territory of New Mexico, in dealing with the boun- 
dary of Texas, declared in so many words that 
nothing therein contained should be construed 
to repeal or modify anything contained in that very 
clause of the Texas resolution. 

These Northern Democrats still further merci- 
lessly press their Democratic brethren, as if to 
leave my honorable friends on my left no escape 
from the most awkward of dilemmas. If it be true 
that the principle of popular sovereignty was set- 
tied by the Compromise measures of 1850, how 
came it to be omitted in the legislation of 1853 — 
since the acts of 1850 were enacted? The Con- 
gress in 1853, with a great Democratic majority, 
organized the Territory of Washington out of ter- 
ritory over which the Ordinance of 1*787 had been 
by them, in 1848, extended; and that Congress, in 
the year of grace 1853, and of the era of the new 
dispensation the 3d, not merely failed to remove 
that restriction, but declared that the laws of Ore- 
gon should be in force in the Territory of Wash- 
ington ; which laws excluded slavery by special en- 
actment, in flagrant conflict with the principle 
which they now declare to have been the very vital 
principle embodied in and pervading the acts of 
1850. You know as well as we do that these 
Compromise measures of 1850 have always been 
regarded and treated as a finality — the end of 
controversy — that this last compromise, this great 
Compromise of 1850, was settled upon the bases 
of all the preceding compromises — on the assump- 
tion and the concession, as stated by Mr. Webster, 
that every foot of territory in the United States 
was finally settled by laws irrepealable, and that 
it was only on that supposition that the laws of 
1850 became laws at all. Only last session you 
passed a bill creating a government over all the 
Territory now embraced in the Kansas and Ne- 
braska act, without opposition, merely by common 
consent ; and no man of any party had discovered, 
or if he had discovered revealed, still lees attempt- 



ed to declare, the novel dogma of a latent princi- 
ple not even expressed in an act, being effectual to 
annul another law enacted on a different princi- 
ple. From argument they passed to entreaty and 
pathetic appeal. These thirty years we have lived 
under this law. It has injured no man. No South- 
ern State protested against its enactment — none 
in 1850 demanded its repeal; many Southern men 
pressed its extension.tr> the Pacific. No Southern 
State now demands it ; no tempest agitates the 
popular mind which its repeal can quiet ; no great 
national necessity compels the statesman, in the high 
election between opposite evils, to tread this un- 
trod path. You say your object is not a new slave 
State — then let it be as it is. You say the North- 
ern tide of emigration will insure itsfreedom. Then 
why do the nugatory act of repealing a law which 
changes no result ? Why disturb the peace of the 
country by this wound inflicted on the prejudices 
of your Northern brethren ? Deliver us not over 
into the hands of the Abolitionists. They are 
ever watchful to rebel against the overthrow of 
1850. We stood by you then — will you betray us 
now ? 

Well, sir, this bill passed. I come to the de- 
plorable sequel. It was an invitation for all the 
elements of strife to concentrate in Kansas. The 
executive representing the combined factions of 
both North and South ought to have been doubly 
careful to have taken some man from the North 
or South who was far above the suspicion, strong 
to resist solicitations, strong to repel menace^ 
magnanimously above private, personal, and pecu- 
niary considerations. He could have taken such 
a man as my friend from Oregon, [Mr. Lane,] 
now in my eye ; they should have taken a man 
with nerve enough not to be frightened by threats 
or menaces, and honest enough not to be niovkd 
by promises ; they should have taken a man who 
knew of border life, with military experience 
enough to set a battalion in the field, whose head , 
would not be dizzy at the flash of steel, who would 
have said to all invaders, emissaries of Aid Societies' 
or marauders from the Missouri border — pass npt 
hither ! Who would have seen to it that the 
great tourney between the champions of free- 
dom, and of slavery was fairly fought, with 
equal wind and sun, and a truncheon swayed by 
no partiality. There are men within the sound of 
my voice, of that party, who would have cut oft' 
their right hand rather than allow the violent over- 
throw of the law they were ordered to execute, whoie 
cheek would burn with shame at the unchecked inso-; 
lence with which Governor Seeder's authority wa^' 
derided or eluded ; men who would have bittea 
out their tongues ere they made the confessions, 
poured by Gov. Recder in the President's ear,i>r 



9 



hearing them would have held parley with the 
confessor, proposed honorable banishment on a fo- 
reign mission to coax a faithful but obnoxious in- 
strument out of the way, to avoid the scandal of a 
public dismission, and the greater scandal of a con- 
fession of blunders worse than crimes, and weak- 
ness worse than wickedness. If there were no 
such men within that party, it is unfit to guide the 
destinies of -this country. If there were, then are 
they thrice unworthy to hold a power they have so 
grossly abused. Sir, that scene in the Executive 
chamber — the proconsul of the President, narrating 
that he let the very life blood of the Province he 
ruled run unavenged and unstaunched, the very 
flowers of her franchises be trampled down at the 
sacred ballot box, marauders from either pole run 
a muck over her peaceful population, himself bu- 
ried to the eyes and ears in private speculations in 
public land3 over which he ruled, of questionable 
legality and of unquestionable evil example, and, 
deaf to the cry of helpless agony that rung 
through his domain, content to leave his peo- 
ple (!) to their enemies if the Protector and the 
President could agree on the color to be put 
on the scandals, and adjust the division of the re- 
sponsibility ; confessing these things to the Presi- 
dent of the Republic, and that President driving a 
bargain for a foreign mission, in lieu of instant and 
ignominious expulsion from office ; and, the nego- 
tiation failing, dismissing him gently for illegal 
speculation ; silent as the tomb to the civil war 
that he allowed to rage ; the outraged law he 
failed to avenge ; the rights of suffrage violated 
with impunity ; and the yoke of a legislation born 
in violence and fraud by his judgment fastened on 
the necks of American freemen ; these things es- 
tablished by a vast mass of resistless testimony, 
form a new and melancholy chapter in the History 
of the Republic. 

Sir, the party whose policy, however well in- 
tended, has given occasion to stain the American 
name with civil blood by the repeal of the Mis- 
souri Compromise, is not likely to stand well with 
the men of the North, whose brethren have been 
the sufferers. Their denials of the outrages, their 
extenuations, their apologies, day after day, in this 
House, till the stupendous mass ©f the commit- 
tee's evidence overwhelmed them; and their carp- 
ing cavils at that evidence, — to my judgment yet 
nnimpeached, and, if so, of crushing weight, — 
scarcely tends to 'improve the odor of the Demo- 
cratic party in Northern nostrils. 

That is my opinion of the result of the Kansas ! 
investigation. I dare not impute perjury to men 
by the hundred : the concurrence of so many is 
itself conclusive against the hypothesis of fabrica- 
cation ; and I must be pardoned if ray legal hab- 



its will not allow me to weigh partisan denials 
against testimony sworn in the face of cross-exam- 
ination. I make no plea of justification for some 
strained or one-sided inferences, which my friend 
from Ohio has drawn from that evidence. I tender 
no apology for the one-sided results drawn by my 
friend from Missouri. I am here, sir, for no 
party. I am speaking this day for the Constitu- 
tion and the Union. I am pleading for the great- 
rights of American citizens. I am pleading for 
the honor and integrity of the American govern- 
ment and the American name. I will set down no 
word in malice that would tinge the honor of the 
country or hide one dark trait which the people of 
the country ought to know. The reason the North, 
is opposed to the Democratic party is, that they 
have done these things. 

Now, sir, perhaps we begin to see why the 
Northern people will not support Mr. Buchanan. 
Why will they not support him ? Why will not 
the conservative vote be given for him ? — for there 
is a conservative majority. They wiil not vote for 
the Democratic party, nor for the Democratic nom- 
inee, because they have been guilty of these things. 
They will not vote for them, because they have 
never repented in sackcloth and ashes. They will 
not vote for them, because they have denied the 
wrongs before the proof, and defended them after 
the proof. They will not vote for them, because 
they have reiterated the insult. They will not 
vote for them, because they have blazoned on their 
banner the very word3 of the ambiguous oracle of 
the Kansas and Nebraska act, the very cause and 
declaration of war, now no longer deluding any one, 
but plainly in bloody letters interpreted on the 
fields of Kansas. These are reasons they think 
sufficient, and they are likely to continue to think 
them sufficient. If Mr. Fillmore were in that posi- 
tion they would not vote for him. Ay, sir, even a 
conservative Northern man, tempted by spirit of re- 
venge and retaliation would have to argue with him- 
self a long time before he could bring himself down 
to vote for this man, who has outraged all the feel- 
ings with which these men have been brought up — 
the best and the most conservative of them, thou- 
sands of degrees from Abolitionists — men who are 
supporting the Constitution and the Union — 
men who are willing to support and defend the 
institution of slavery — men like those at Boston, 
who, to execute the Fugitive Slave Law, marched 
down the streets of that city with loaded arms to 
shoot down their own citizens, that you, men of the 
South, might be protected. These are the men 
you have driven from you. Where will they go, if 
Mr. Fillmore were not offered to them as the sym- 
bol of peace ? 

Why, sir, I put it to my honorable friends to 



10 



apply to them the arguments they hold valid at 
the South. These Northern men are of like pas- 
sions with us, moved by insult, not above re- 
venge, and not given to preferring, in a Pactional 
contest, the candidate of their opponents. My 
Democratic friends, from every hustings in the 
South, exhort the people to vote for Mr. Bucha- 
nan because he is the Southern candidate, because 
he is for the Kansas-Nebraska act, because he is 
against compromise, in a Southern sense, because 
he is the strongest man opposed to the Northern 
sectional candidate. And by this sort of argu- 
ment they admit that the sectional candidate at 
the North represents the same class of men at 
the North that they represent at the South — men 
who are no more unreasonable in a Northern than 
they are in a Southern sense. As ihey appeal 
to the South, so do the men who support Mr. Fre- 
mont appeal to the North. Gentlemen of the Dem- 
ocratic party, judge ye how far they are entitled to 
weight. Are they conclusive ? Do they compel 
me to yield my political preferences ? Is it right 
that I shall go for Mr. Buchanan? Am I bound 
to bow the knee to him? Is it so desperate a 
case that I must stomach the imputations and 
the slurs which were hurled on me and the Ame- 
rican party during two or three months of this 
long session ? Shall I, for these considerations of 
a merely sectional and Southern character, because 
he is, you say, the candidate of my section, aban- 
don those who have stood by us ? I pray you to 
recall to your memories, and weigh well the oblo- 
quy cast on the American party. We were, you say, 
an unconstitutional party, yea, the very enemies 
of the constitution. "We were opposed to civil 
and religious liberty. We were for depriving men 
of equal rights. We were for driving the honest 
foreigner from our shores. We were midnight assas- 
sins — stained with the blood and dirt of riotous 
mobs. We had taken unconstitutional oaths not to 
obey the constitution. We could not be touched 
in the Speaker's contest. No compromise could 
be made with us. No exchange of candidates 
could be thought of for a moment. The honora- 
ble gentleman from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Fulles,) 
who better accords with their notions on slavery, 
in theory and in practice than the honorable mem- 
ber from Illinois, so long their candidate, could net 
be touched. The very meeting in convention, the 
vei y meeting in caucus, ay, sir, the very meeting 
for open consultation, was scorned and flung back 
in our faces. They could not touch these politi- 
collepera. A plurality rule was an alternative they 
preferred, knowing the consequences of the vote 
would be to place the present Speaker in the 
chair. 

Sir, it is my misfortune that I have a weak* 



stomach for the digestion of indignities, and it 
revolted at the degradation that was attempted 
to be placed on us. I resolved not to make an 
election between the candidates of the sectional 
parties, but to let them fight it out, and take the 
consequences. Such was their horror of this Amer- 
| ican party, that Democratic gentlemen united with 
! the Republicans to pass that plurality resolution. 
| which elevated to the chair the honorable gentleman 
I from Massachusetts, who, whatever may be said of 
j his political opinioes, and much as I deplore his 
I political aberrations, has graced the chair he oc- 
! cupies, with dignity, ability and impartiality, but 
| whom they branded as faithless to the consti- 
| tution, the fiercest enemy of the South, holding 
j the foul dogma of amalgamation — whose elevation 
j would be the sure precursor of calamities nameless 
| and numberless. They were willing to take that 
i plurality rule which inevitably would result in his 
election, rather than the gentleman from Pennsyl- 
vania. 

I Such was their conduct to us — so conciliatory, 
so amiable, so loving, so winning— yet, in the face 
of this rough wooing, they urge us, because of our 
connexion with the South, to abandon Mr. Fillmore, 
the choice of our hearts, for Mr. Buchanan; because 
Mr. Buchanan is the safe and strong man for ihe- 
South, the representative of Southern interests. 
So intensely did they hate us, so much more 
did they hate us than the gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts, (the Speaker) — yet so paramount do they 
regard the allegiance to the sectional candidate, 
that they ask us to sacrifice our personal preferen- 
ces, our political convictions, our outraged dignity 
for their triumph ! ■ 

Be it so. Is that the intensity of their sectional 
devotion? I ask them to apply the argument 
North of Mason and Dixon's line, and tell me 
who, if he is not utterly abandoned and degraded, 
j can under these circumstances vote for that can- 
j didate who holds the position their candidate holds 
j at the South and towards the South. I make 
here no argument of my own. I take honorable 
| gentlemen upon their principles. I commend to 
• their lips the chalice they mixed and poisoned 
j for mine, and I dare them to the taste. I know 
I that my friends in rashness and hot party strife 
have done many things to endanger the consti- 
tution. I do not believe they wish to elect Fre- 
mont ; but, sir, if they had been bent directly upon 
accomplishing that; purpose, no man could find out 
any manner which would more directly and more 
inevitably accomplish that result than that which 
has been pursued. I wish to free it from all col- 
lateral issues, and put this one great argument be- 
fore the country, so that there shall be an end to 
this effort to get rid of Mr. Fillmore by this ap- 
peal to Southern prejudices. 



11 



I wish to deal with that and nothing else to- { 
night. I say, sir, if Mr. .Fillmore be not supported j 
by the South, the whole North, and every State of J 
it, must -and will, conservative men, and mad men, 
vote for Mr. Fremont, by the very same reason that 
Democrats urge to induce Southern gentlemen to 
abandon Mr. Fillmore for Mr. Buchanan. There 
needs but these words to accomplish it : " Fill- 
more is deserted by the South he saved." That 
one line would be a quietus undoubtedly of this 
contest. Democrats must accept that result of 
their own reasoning. They claim every Southerner 
in the name of sectional interests. The Republi- 
cans will claim every Northern man in the name 
of Northern interests. If we must obey they must 
obey. Is the North, will Democrats admit, less fa- 
natical, less excitable, less hostile than themselves? 
If not, the sectional feeling must press them at 
least equally. Will they be likely to listen more 
readily to reasons for Mr. Buchanan than South- 
ern men to reasons for Mr. Fremont ? Or, will not 
both be more accessible to arguments for Mr. Fill- 
more than either. Do they suppose the Northern 
laborer to be less interested than the Southern 
planter in the question of free and slave labor, or is 
he more cool and unprejudiced when his livelihood 
and personal dignity are involved, than the South- 
ern planter whose property only is effected ? 

The argument, therefore, must be abandoned, or 
it must be admitted as unquestionably true that 
the logical result is, to drive the whole North not I 
into the arms of Mr. Buchanan, but into the arms 
of Mr. Fremont. 

The Democratic party at the North has melted 
away into the Fremont party. They form its 
strength. They have done so, because they were 
specially grieved by the use made of their Repre- 
sentatives in the Kansas-bill conflict. They had 
always been what in other people the Southern 
Democrats called Free-soil. That shone out in the 
remarks of the honorable gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Leiter] whose series of resolutions for fifteen J 
years spoke one language — beginning in the Demo- 
cratic Conventions and ending in the Republican 
Conventions — with a unity of sentiment and lan- 
guage defj'ing the detection of the point where the 
Democrat shaded off into the Republican. It is for 
this reason that this blow has been so fatal to the 
Democratic party of the North — that the hatred of 
the North is so deadly against it and yet is con- 
fined to it, and yet so sagaciously under control, 
so much of method in their madness that they will 
not allow a chance to Mr. Buchanan of election by 
pluralities, but will defeat that by any combination. 

This view should determine the South to disen- 
tangle its cause from the fragments of the broken, 
powerless, and obnoiiou3 Democrats. The Dem- j 



I ocratrc party are no longer he ffied'itors be* 
j tween North and Scuta. How can *hey exact per- 
j formance of the Texas compromise ? How protest 
' against a repeal of the fugitive slave* law ? How 
demand that the Wiimot Proviso be not extended 
to all the Territories ? How claim the admission 
of more slave States ? Their mouth is sealed on 
these topics before the revenge of the Repub- 
licans. By the law of retaliation the3e things 
would be natural and just punishments to that 
party which has swept away the compromises and 
.denied the principles on which all these rights 
rested. The Republican closes his mouth with the 
reply, you, the Democratic party, have no right to 
appeal to us. 

It is only in the name of the Southern people, 
of the men who do not join in the outrage, that 
these dire consequences can be surely avoided. 
The repudiation of the Democratic party is the 
first condition and best security of peace and safety. 
It silences the plea of revenge and retaliation. 
The people of the South owe it to themselves and 
to their future as completely to discard the Dem- 
ocrats as the people of the North have withdrawn 
from them their confidence. 

But there are Democratic gentlemen who antici- 
pate the success of the argument in driving every 
body to support Mr. Fremont and who speculate 
on the consequences. 

There are men who go about the country de- 
I claiming about the inevitable consequences of the 
election of Fremont ; and the question is asked 
whether that simple fact is not sufficient, not 
merely to justify, but to require a dissolution of 
the Union. The question has been asked me to- 
day. That is a question which I do not regard as 
even a subject of discussion. It never will be done 
while men have their reason. It never will be 
done until some party, bent upon acquiring party 
power, shall again and again and again exasperate 
beyond the reach of reason the Northern and 
{ Southern minds, a3 my Southern friends have new 
exasperated the Northern mind. It would be an 
act of suicide, and sane men do not commit suicide. 
The act itself is insanity. It will be done, if ever, 
in a tempest of fury and madness which cannot stop 
to reason. Dissolution means death, the suicide 
of Liberty, without a hope ci resurrection — 'death 
without the glories of immortality ; with no sister 
to mourn her fall, none to wrap her decently in 
her winding sheet and bear her tenderly to a sepul- 
chre — dead Liberty, left to all the horror of cor- 
ruption, a loathsome thing, with a stake through 
the body, which men shun, cast out naked on 
the highway of nations whero the. tyrants of the 
earth who feared her living will mock her dead, 
j passing by on the other side, wagging their hea.8 



1 



2 



and thrusting their tongue in their cheek at her, 
saying, behold her, how she that was fair among 
the nations is fallen! is fallen! — and only the few 
wise men who loved her out of every nation will 
shed tears over her desolation as they pass, and 
cast handfuls cf earth on her body to quiet her 
manes, while we, her children, stumble about her 
ruined habitations to find dishonorable graves 
wherein to hide our shame. Dissolution ? How 
shall it be?— who shall make it? Do men dream 
of Lot and Abraham parting, one to the East and 
the other to the West, peacefully, because their 
servants strive? That States will divide from 
States and boundary lines will be marked by com- 
pass and chain? Sir, that will be a portentous com- 
mission that shall settle that partition, for cannon 
will be planted at the corners and grinning skele- 
tons be finger posts to point the way. It will be 
no Hue gently marked on the bosom of the Repub- 
lic — some meandering vein whence generations of 
her children have drawn their nourishment — but a 
sharp and jagged chasm, rending the hearts of 
great Commonwealths, lacerated and smeared with 
fraternal blood. On the night when the stars of 
her constellation shall fall from heaven, the black- 
ness of darkness for ever will settle on the liber- 
ties of mankind in this Western World. This is 
dissolution. 

If such, sir, is dissolution as seen in a glass dark- 
ly, how terrible will it be face to face ? They who 
reason about it are half crazy now. They who 
talk of it do not mean it, and dare not mean it. 
They who speak in earnest of a dissolution of this 
Union, seem to me like children or madmen. Ee 
who would do such a deed as that would be the 
maniac without a tongue to tell his deed, or reason 
to arrest his steps— an instrument of a mad im- 
pulse, impelled by one idea to smite his victim. 
Sir, there have been maniacs who have been cured 
by horror at the blood they have shed ! 

Gentlemen ask, if Mr. Fremont be elected, how 
will Maryland go ? — what will Maryland do? I do 
not allow that question to be asked. She knows 
but one country and but one Union. Her glory is 
in it. Her rights are bound up in it. Her chil- 
dren shed their blood for it, and they will do it 
again. Beyon r } she knows nothing. She does 
not reckon whei r there is more advantage in the 
Union to the IS irt i or the South — she does not 
calculate its value —nor does she cast up an ac- 
count of profit and loss on the blood of her chil- 
dren. That is my answer to that question. 

But, sir, it is portentous to hear the members 
of a party contesting for the Presidency menace 
dissolution and revolution as the penalty they will 
inflict on the victors for defeating them. People 
who do not hold the Union worth four years de- 



privation of office are scarcely safe depositories of 
its powers ! 

But if these are to be the bloody consequences 
of a successful concentration of the Northern vote 
on Mr. Fremont, will not my Democratic friends, 
as the result of the argument, allow the moderate 
and conservative men of the North and of the South 
a chance to cling to those around them who being 
open to reason, yet doubt how they shall vote, and 
reiterate in their ears reasons why they should not 
drive this dangerous issue to a decision. They 
suppose that because in the wreck of parties they 
must go to the wall, or to the bottom, unless 
Mr. Fillmore can be gotten rid of, that which 
is necessary to save them is likewise necessary to 
save the Union. " We are the State " — what is 
good for us therefore is good for the State is their 
reasoning ; and the Kansas act and civil war is the 
conclusion ! Self-love, party-devotion, have misled 
them. Their safety and their success involve*great 
danger to the Republic, and in their ruin lies the 
safety of the Republic, 

Sir, they boast at the South— and it is their io- 
triumphe — that they have defeated and overthrown 
Abolition. Is it from this great struggle, then, 
that the Democratic ranks are weak and wan and 
thin ? Why, sir, the Abolition party fell beneath 
the blows of Miliard Fillmore, leading the conserv- 
ative men of all parties — the Clays, the Websters, 
the Footes, the Bentons of that great era of 1850.. 
It died of the Compromise of 1850, and was laid in 
a tomb inscribed with those acts, and bearing on 
its base the words : Millard Fillmore fecit. 

TJieir leaders covered the journals of the Senate 
with their protests against those wise but obnox- 
ious concessions which laid the evil spirit. But 
when the monster was overthrown and the field 
deserted, they dug up the dead body and laid it at 
the feet of the South, and claimed their reward — 
" Lo our trophy — lo our scalp — to you be the spoil 
of our sword and spear" — Aye, sir, "they fought 
an hour by Shrewsbury clock." 

While Prince Hal made Percy food for worms, 
Fallstaff counterfeited death, and when the fight 
was o'er and the victor gone, Falstaff thus solilo- 
quizing : 

" Zounds, I am afraid of this gun-powder Percy, 
though he is dead. Therefore, I'll make sure of 
him — yea, and I'll swear I killed him. Nothing 
confutes me but eyes, and nobody sees me. " 

Stabbed the dead body in the thigh, shoulder- 
ed it, and cast it at the feet of the victor — 

"There is Percy. If your father will do me 
any honor — well. If not, let him kill the next 
Percy himself. I look to be either Earl or Duke, 
I can assure you /" 
| The Prince turned away — Falstaff following — 

" I'll follow, as they say, for reward. He that 
I rewards me, God reward him !" 



13 



Mr. Chairman, I have but a few words more to 
say. Whose cause am I pleading ? I speak here 
in behalf of that vilified party, representing the 
mass of the American people in revolt agaiDst the 
domination of effete parties, which is willing, irre- 
spective of the chances of success or defeat, like its 
great leader, to devote itself to the Constitution 
and to the Union. I have sworn to support the 
Constitution and the Union. I am bound to see 
and will see that contending factions shall not 
make the foreign vote the balance of power in 
this country. I have resolved that, so far as in 
me lies, religion shall be banished from politics, 
and no man shall attempt to invoke the religious 
prejudices of any man. Sir, I will devote myself 
to weeding out these transactions with the seces- 
sion party of the South, with the Abolition party 
at the North, with religious parties aspiring to po- 
litical power, be they Methodist or Catholic, with 
foreign votes that can be bought, with the venal 
of all parties, who play the game of power with 
the interests of the people, and light the war of 
sectional interests that they may be sutlers to the 
camp. And whether we succeed to-day, or not 
till to-morrow, time is for us, the future is ours, 
the Young America cries the name of the Ameri- 
can party and imbibes its principles in his earliest 
and pristine vigor. These sentiments will not 
die out for a generation, and in less than a gen- 
eration the republic can be saved. I, sir, shall 
abide by that candidate who has been selected by 
this party to protect the interests of this country. 

Between the candidates of rival sections I will 
not select. 

I can accept no statesman of twenty days, whose 
only principle is, the forcing of the Topeka con- 
stitution on the necks of the Kansas people, with- 
out pledges to fortune for good behavior, or a past 
to read the future by. I marvel at my Republi- 
can friends, still smarting under the experience 
of what one unknown man may do, walking with 
their eyes open into the same trap. 

I can accept no man whose tortuous career 
touches alternately each extreme of the political 
sphere, his political life^ merged in a party plat- 
form, and chosen as the leader of the Democratic 



party to torment the North to madness, and to fol- 
low in the footsteps of this administration on the 
bloody grounds of Kansas. 

I have no preferences between two men who 
dispute the doubtful honor of applying the torch to 
the temple of the constitution. 

No law can quiet Kansas, unless a soothing ad- 
ministration soften the exacerbated feelings of the 
people. With such an administration no law is 
needed. If Mr. Buchanan be elected, he will fol- 
low the bloody policy of this administration, whose 
sins and glories, Greytown, Ostend, Kansas, and 
all, decorate and oppress him. If Mr. Fremont 
be elected, he will be the hero of a counter 
revolution, fierce and merciless as is the retalia- 
tion of the oppressed, the sport of fierce passions 
to which he will owe his power, and which he can- 
not and dare not control. 

I shall, in this crisis, adhere to Millard Fillmore, 
who knows not where the South ends and the 
North begins, equally above fear or flattery, deco- 
rated with the glory of an illustrious administra- 
tion, saluted " Pacificator" by the acclaim of the 1 
people, and now alone capable of restoring peace 
to this distracted land. He has been tried on each 
extreme of fortune. He has passed through the 
torrid zone of heady and tempestuous youth with- 
out excess. He has trod the temperate zone of ma- 
turer manhood, where ambition burns with strong- 
est flame and reason stands ready to minister to 
its bidding, unswayed by any temptation ; and now 
near the close of a great career, in that last zone, 
when the head is crowned with the snow of many 
winters, and the sun of reason knows no setting, 
where there is no mist to cloud the eye, and no 
passion to lead astray the heart, the past of life 
is more than the future, temptation jeopards 
more than it can promise, and only posterity and 
the throne of God are before him. He can do jus- 
tice in the face of temptation, and betweQn con- 
tending factions who will not do justice to them- 
selves. To him I shall adhere in every extrem- 
ity. To him I summon my countrymen, in the 
name of the Union he saved. And in this great 
issue I put myself on God and my country. 



REMARKS 

OF 

HON. HENRY WINTER DAVIS, OF MD. 

AGAINST A PROVISO OFFERED TO THE GENERAL APPROPRIATION BILL 
IN TEE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 



A fit sequel to the foregoing speech are the follow- 
ing observations against the proviso to the appro- 
priation bill: 

Mr. DAVIS, of Maryland. Mr. Chairman, this 
discussion has, I think, come to a point where gen- 
tlemen ought to make up their minds what they 
are going to do. I agree with gentlemen, that the 
prosecutions in Kansas ought not to proceed. Con- 
structive treason is here a scandal in this re- 
publican land. I agree with gentlemen that there 
is not a shadow of foundation for indictments for 
treason, if the opinion and statement of Judge 
Leeompte be correctly reported in the papers. It 
embodies the very evil which the constitution 
has", it he be right, vainly tried to avert. I agree 
with this side of the House, that in a case of revo- 
lutionary necessity, they have a right to arrest the 
appropriations for the conduct of the judicial de- 
partment of the government, as well as of any 
others. But we have not reached that point where 
a revolutionary remedy is justifiable, and, therefore) 
this amendment is not proper ; and it is childish in 
the extreme and cannot accomplish the purpose 
gentlemen have in view. It is only teasing, wor- 
rying, and futile. Your judge is there. Does this 
remove him ? Your sheriff is there. Does this 
deprive him of his power? The power to summon 
a posse is in him. Does this arrest it?- Your 
clerk is there. Can he not enter the indictment ? 
This amendment strips him of his fee for that par- 
ticular act, but leaves him the rest of his salary. 
You do nothing but strike down the miserable fee 
to a particular ofxicer for rendering a particular 
service. 

I say, then, with all respect, that the amend- 
ment is mere child's play. If gentlemen mean to 
create revolution, let the)n apply the vigorous rem- 
edy of the gentleman rom IndiarTa, [Mr. Dunn,] 
who, when he strikes, BtrikeB at the roots. Let 



them arrest the wheels of government. If they 
are willing io take that responsibility, for the ac- 
complishment of what they know will be accom- 
plished by the progress of time and by the lack of 
nerve that presides at the head of the government, 
then they are the worst architects of ruin that thig 
country has ever seen. 

It now seems 'quite certain that there will be no 
further prosecution of these indictments for treason. 
This Administration has tried the temper of the 
country till it is at the verge of civil war. It has 
played out its game of rule or ruin ; and now, af- 
ter months of imprisonment, it is about to turn free 
its victims, with no more knowledge than it has all 
along had. The pressure of the Presidential con- 
test, the necessities of party power have driven 
the Administration to arrest a course of misrule, 
which they have hitherto denied to be misrule ; 
which the ambition of party power initiated, but 
which now threatens to ruin those who began it. 
Perhaps it could not 1 safely be done before the 
Cincinnati Convention ! 

The prosecution of those indictments is of itself 
ground of impeachment — the levying of war 
against the United States is alone treason — the as- 
suming to make a State government with a view 
of asking admission by Congress cannot be trea- 
sonable nor any act leading to it ; and constructive 
treason is unknown to our laws ; the continuing 
those prosecutions, knowing the grounds to be un- 
founded and impossible, is a grave offence ; the 
final dismission, under political stress of weather, 
is a confession of the original error, and should re- 
coil with ruin on the Administration. SJhie 
amendment is feeble and needless ; but the thing 
it seeks to accomplish must be done. If done, the 
Administration pleads guilty ; if it be not done 
the people will render the same verdict. Timt iff 
all I have to say. 



/ 



CIRCULAR. 



The undersigned, members of the National 
jUxpcu five Committee of th-e American Party, 
have pleasure in announcing to the people, that 
satisfactory arrangements for the future main- 
tenance of the American Organ, as an au- 
thoritative exponent and advocate oi the, prin- 
ciples of he American Party, have been 
completed. 

Recommencing its labors, under these new 
auspices, the undersigned cheerfully commend 



the American Organ to the generous con- 
dence of the American Party, in every sec- 
tion of the Confederacy, and they hope its 
columns may command the widest circula- 
tion. 

HUMPHREY MARSHALL, of Ky 
SOLOMON G. HAVEN, of N. Y. 
J. MORRISON HARRIS, of Mi 
JACOB BROOM, Penn. 
Washington City, D. C, May 15th, 1856. 



PROSPECTUS OF THE AMERICAN^ORGAN. 

Teb American Organ having been adopted, by the Executive Committee of the Ameri- 
tau member* of Congress, as the central organ of the American party, the proprietor with 
a view to its general and extensive circulation throughout the. country, has determine'd, on 
consultation with his political friends, to furnish the same to subscribers, whose subscriptions 
are remitted after May 1st, and during the months of May, June, and July, on the following 
reduced terms, to wit : 

Tertnt of the Daily American Organ. 
Daily Organ, for one year - - $3 00 | Daily Organ, for six months - $2 00 
t Terms of the Weekly American Organ. 



Weekly Organ, for one "year, to single 
subscribers - - - - $1 50 

Weekly Organ, for six months, to single 
subscribers .... loo 

Weekly Organ, for one year, to clubs of 



eight or more subscribers, each $1 25 
Weekly Organ, for six months, to clubs 

of eight or more subscribers, each *75 
Weekly Organ, for the campaign, to wit: 

from July lat to 15th November, each 50 



All subscribers whose subscriptions have been remitted during the month of May, have 
been charged only at above rate3. 



( 



